


The Snake and the Hyena

by Aleph (Immatrael), EarthScorpion



Series: Kerisgame extras [7]
Category: Exalted
Genre: BDSM, F/F, F/M, Hyena Anatomy, Orgasm Delay/Denial, Sensation Play, Trans Female Character, fun with alchemy, or at least coded that way
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-13
Updated: 2021-02-14
Packaged: 2021-03-13 13:40:45
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 19,469
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29402826
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Immatrael/pseuds/Aleph, https://archiveofourown.org/users/EarthScorpion/pseuds/EarthScorpion
Summary: From Claudia, the Lambskin Hyena, one can learn many things.  Things that aren't just 'OK, steppy buff demonic hyena queens are hot', that is (though they certainly are).  And after Keris wins a wager with her, she's going to have ample chance to study.
Relationships: Keris Dulmeadokht/Claudia
Series: Kerisgame extras [7]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/957492
Kudos: 9





	1. The Pulsing Floor

The Topless Tower stood upon the Street of Golden Lanterns within Hell, and within that slithering place it stood in five places. Climb the stairs of one floor, and one would find themselves in another place. The floor known as the Pulsing Floor was close to the crippled behemoth Jelenth, who once stole drinks from the table of Isidoros and whose blood forevermore had been sweet and efficacious. The area around his prone bulk was filled with distilleries fed by copper pipes that run from his veins and butchers who hacked off chunks of ever-regrowing flesh.

The Pulsing Floor had been built to honour the spirit of this place, from the products of Jelenthm and it was nearly a living thing. The air was thick with the mug of sweat and sex, the curtains were woven hair, and ivory archways resembled bones. Pores in the walls took the edge off the heat, but only added to the humidity. This was a place of skin. The walls were warm and damp to the touch, the floor sticky, the beds covered in velvety flesh.

To this place, Keris Dulmeadokht had taken Claudia the Lambskin Hyena, for the demon lord had come off worse in a wager between them and now for a scream of the tomescu she would have to obey and submit to the princess of the green sun. They were straight out of the fighting arenas, and Keris gleamed in almost-organic demonic plate while Claudia wore scaled armour ripped from some forgotten monster.

“Would you rather go back downstairs?” Keris hummed smugly. “Or does this floor satisfy your _tastes?”_ There was a wealth of promise of what else Claudia might be tasting soon in the last word, throaty and low.

“This is the heart of the Street,” Claudia said rather than answer directly, voice oddly soft as she glanced out the window. “Under the gold; under the beauty; meat pounding meat, at least if you ask Quintus - my brother. The gold is just how we keep score, he says. Do you agree with him, or does the smell and the fleshiness just do things for you?” She cracked her fingers. “Or maybe you have a plan? You’re interesting, Keris. You’re sharper than you act in the Conventicle. I think, perhaps, you depict yourself like my greater self, but you’re maybe a bit more kin to me under the perfumes and the smiles.”

Keris gave her a piercing look, the smugness fading into thoughtful regard for a moment. It was an interesting - and uncommonly perceptive - question. But perhaps Claudia was well-suited to ask it. Most who saw her probably thought of her as a feral, brutish beast, all muscle and no brain. They’d probably be thrown to see her sitting courteously at a table with gold-rimmed spectacles on her nose, reading through documents and negotiating with a sharp intellect and a thorough understanding of value in trade.

After five years as an Exalt, Keris had learned to stop judging by appearances.

“Perhaps I am,” she murmured. “And I do have a plan, yes. I make use of this floor for my alchemy, and the access to the distillery district’s ingredients. I have some nice little brews tucked away in here that will make our pleasure much more enjoyable.” She taps Claudia under her chin. “And I want to get a look at that hyena-form of yours, once I’ve had my pleasure, and I’m sure you’ll be hungry. There’s good food around this entrance to my Tower. But first...”

She pushed Claudia up against the wall, unnaturally strong for such a small woman, and slid one knee between the other woman’s thighs.

“First, I think I’m going to ride you till you scream.”

The demon lord seemed to consider this not much of a threat, from her cocky smile. “So how do you want to do this?” she asked.

Grabbing one arm, Keris led her through to one of the bedchambers in the Pulsing Floor. This room was nearly an auditorium, with a central bed made from bone and draped with flesh sitting in the centre of a lowered, stepped circle. Tendon-cables hung down from the ceiling, pulsing to the building’s heartbeat, and unnamed liquids slowly drip-drip-dripped down from the jagged ceiling. One wall was jagged basalt columns girded with translucent membranes upon which was cast the shadow-play of the affairs of the street outside.

“Go to the bed and strip off your armour,” she ordered. “Stay there until I return. There are some things I need to get and others I need to prepare.” She ran one strand of hair along Claudia’s jaw. “And the anticip-” she paused for a breath, “-pation will be good for you.”

“As you desire, Peer Dulmeadokht,” Claudia said, golden eyes hooded. “Don’t hurry on my behalf. Your time doesn’t start until the next scream.”

She did hurry, though. The fight had been late in the scream, and with the time taken to get here - well, she didn’t want to waste more than she had to. Heading through into one of the smaller changing rooms, she lit the dim yellow lanterns with a snap. She unsealed her armour and stepped out of it, revealing that she was nude underneath. Padding got in the way of handling her increasingly resistant armour. She needed the skin contact and she was tough enough to take it.

“You were stiff today. I took a few blows I didn’t need to because of you,” she told the suit, running a hand over the green-tinted moonsilver. There was no response, of course. “I really need to take some time to try some repairs. If you locked up on me when it’s a real fight, I’d be fucked. And not literally, like what could have happened today.” 

Shaking her head, Keris made sure the armour was properly locked in position, and wandered over to the mirror, the floor sticky velvety flesh underfoot. This dressing room was cramped between the wall-mirrors trimmed with bone and the wardrobe of fetishwear. Tucking her hair back, Keris examined herself. She met her own grey eyes, and nodded. She wasn’t entirely fresh, but there was something about the slightly deshabile look of a bit of sweat and imperfect hair that was plenty hot. It definitely looked good on Claudia too.

Was there anything else she needed to do? She’d known she was getting laid today either way, so she’d taken time to handle things before the fight. The only hair below her neck was the empty red circle she’d shaped the hair on her pubic mound into, a reminder of her status as one of the Scourges of Hell. That was staying; if she’d have lost, she’d have removed it so Claudia wouldn’t be symbolically laying claim to a Scourge. Perfume? No. She’d be making Claudia breathe in her smell from their battle, and more simply the Pulsing Floor wasn’t friendly to delicate scents.

So next came her choice of outfit and body ornaments. She’d left a few things from the time her and Sasi had decided to play a game of themed fucking on each floor of the Topless Tower, and while Sasi hadn’t liked this floor much for the decor and the general viscerality, Keris had wanted to pull out this outfit again.

Her little jewelry box had the piercings in it, deliberately crude rings of Valiant iron that sparked and crackled with captive blue-black lightning. They’d lost some of their charge, but they’d be good for a scream of wear. When she removed them from their insulating boxes, they occasionally arced between each other. Blue-black ghost lightning jumping between her ears, nipples, navel and clit was striking. Ruins-henna for her hands, to look like bloody patterns… but only if she had time for it. Her hands stroked the outfit she’d picked out. Black sheer stockings. A pale lilac neomah-leather cupless corset, studded with silver studs. And a matching neomah-leather microskirt, which barely covered that she was wearing nothing underneath even when she stood still.

It was halfway on when outside, within hell the clamorous screams of the demon breed known as the tomescu sounded out. Those demons foresaw visions of their own demise at the time when the sun rose or set in Creation, and so within the demon realm - where pitiless Cecelyne had made clocks illegal - they were the only measurement of time. And that meant the time had started.

Keris paused, and shrugged to herself. Five, ten, fifteen minutes wasted wouldn’t mean much. Even she wasn’t planning twelve and a half hours of just sex. She could spend a little time getting ready. So she might skip the henna, but she’d still take the time to paint her nails violet, apply deep purple lip paint, and lightly oil herself. She grinned at herself in the mirror as she tucked the little bottle of lip paint into her corset. She had an idea there.

Taking a deep breath, she took a final look at herself in the mirror, posing as if for an observer. The bulky piercings were an unfamiliar weight, and she couldn’t resist the urge to play with the ring in her clitoral hood, enjoying its pressure on her most sensitive spot. The tingle when it arced lightning up to her navel was a delightful little buzz. In her head, she heard Pekhijira hiss-moan, her serpent lower-soul enjoying the stimulation just as much.

“You want in on this?” she thought towards the demonic snake.

 _lust-envy-desire-begging_ was the thought that washed back into her, accompanied by a lurid fantasy of Claudia, exhausted and sticky, making wordless pleading noises.

Keris let out a happy little breath, playing with the ring. “So that’s what you want,” she exhaled. “Maybe you should get to watch.” The skin of her left leg rippled, churning from inside, and black colouration bled up from her ankle, curling around and around to take form as a tattoo feathered-serpent who stared possessively from her inner thigh. “That’ll put you right by the action.”

 _lust-delight-nostalgia,_ Pekhijira thought through her, images flashing through her mind of Testolagh begging, Testolagh groaning, Testolagh flat on his back being ridden by her, Testolagh on top of her in that final bit when she’d come.

Keris paused. “You… liked that,” she said, feeling nervous. No, of course Pekhijira had liked that. She’d liked that so her lower, most base soul had liked that. “I… don’t like who I became with him.”

 _lust,_ thought the serpent.

“I know, but-”

 _lust,_ she repeated.

“I know I… I liked it, but I don’t want to lose control again and-”

 _lust-pleasure-anticipation,_ Pekhijira insisted. But no fear.

“You’re not scared,” Keris realised. “But… I’m scared. What if I…” She swallowed. “Maybe I can give it a go,” she offered. “Even if… if it goes wrong. I just won’t bed her again. And I’ll know I can’t trust myself to be in charge. Even if I really,” she slipped a finger inside, “ _really_ like it.”

Pekhijira huffed an _acceptance_ , but didn’t depart. She could feel the snake lurking behind her eyes. Not exactly ready to merge with her and manifest, not yet, not exactly - but a presence in her thoughts, twined jealously around her arousal. And when Keris glanced at her reflection, settling her nerves, she could see her pupils had turned to slits.

“Come on, girl, let’s go play,” she whispered, blinking her eyes back to normal.


	2. Getting to Know Each Other

Music drifted in from outside, if that was the right word for it. Unlike the melodies on much of the Street of Golden Lanterns it was raw industrial noise, interspersed by great pounding drums and the wailing shrieks of the crippled behemoth as a new work shift hacked away at its endlessly regrowing flesh.

The aperture-door to the bedroom slid open wetly, and Keris made her entrance. She was pleased to see her prize had done as ordered, and had arranged herself on the bed at the centre of the auditorium-room.

And what a prize she was! Claudia was not a delicate woman. Her shoulders were massive and blocky; her thighs and calves well-developed; her core a cliff face that others had most likely dashed themselves against. She was a queen of hyenas, and the same bone-crunching strength that Keris had seen in her animal subjects radiated from her form. Her tawny mohawk was cut short at the sides but reached the small of her back, resembling a mane. From this distance her crude tattoos against her skin a few shades darker than Keris’s brought to mind a hyena’s spots. Her little button nose and soft, well-rounded lips were the only thing that softened her appearance, and only slightly. But she lounged on the bed with an easy, natural grace that spoke of her utter self-confidence. She might have lost a bet and traded away half a day of sexual service, but seeing her like this Keris knew for a fact she’d made such bets before - and see why the tomes of demonologists spoke of her desirability as a consort.

Her armour was piled in a heap next to the bed. All she was wearing now was a surprisingly elaborate set of lingerie. Delicate gold lace hugged her modest breasts, part of a harness of silk straps that ringed her body and hooked up to her equally lacy panties which strained to contain her. From its clean state, Keris guessed she must have changed into it now rather than have been wearing it in the fight. It was oddly touching that she’d gone to the effort for Keris, though the rest of her mind pointed out she’d probably done it just so Keris would feel special and so be swayed. She wasn’t a lady to underestimate.

The demon lord probably lounged like this for those poor fools who called her forth from Hell, thinking to win her patronage with gifts of flesh and veneration. Claudia infamously came out on top in many of those little exchanges, and seeing her like this, Keris had a feeling that she probably wouldn’t have minded all so much if she’d lost the fight. 

“Nice,” Keris said. “I know your lady probably insists on the gold, but it works for you. It’d be washed out if you were paler.”

“Same to you,” Claudia said, looking her up and down with a hungry eye. “That’s an excellent cut for you, and the tailoring is exquisite.”

“Thank you. I sewed this myself.”

“A woman of many talents, I see. I was going to offer to introduce you to my favourite tailor on the Street, but looking at you, I may have to commission some works from you for myself.”

Keris paced over, her feet silent on the flesh-soft ground, her poise calculated to avoid flashing Claudia - yet. “We’ll have to talk about that later,” she said softly. “But you don’t get to make decisions like that until the next time the tomescu scream.”

Claudia’s smile was lazy. “I’m pretty sure I’m servicing your ego right now, Keris.”

Damn, she was right. “Well, maybe a little more flattery,” Keris said with false reluctance, as she lifted herself onto the other end of the bed to kneel, smoothing down her skirt. “If you really do insist.”

Shifting herself slightly, Claudia played with one of the shoulder straps of her bra. “You were very interested at my mention of the Daiwye clan. And I can see the highlander in you. You have a parent from there, or you’re from the border regions. I always do like the way that highlander blood looks in a mortal. That’s probably why there are so many stories about the children I give them.” The corners of her lips twisted up. “And the angyalka in you is even more delicious. Such beautiful things. But the way it’s all mixed together... I don’t think I’ve seen anyone who looks quite like you.”

“So it’s just that I’m exotic?” Keris asked, trying to avoid beaming.

“Not just. You’d be exceptionally beautiful even if wasn’t for that lovely blend of human and demon which I always like. You’re petite and slender without looking childish, and that mass of red hair is a crowning glory.”

“I knew there was a reason I liked you,” Keris said, smiling despite her best efforts. “Now, why don’t you come over here and kiss me?”

“It would be my pleasure,” Claudia said, inclining her head. “And may I be so bold as to say, yours too.”

“Cheeky,” Keris murmured, cupping the other woman’s jawline to guide her lips in. 

Claudia tasted vaguely perfumed, but with something bestial and musty underneath. Keris pushed up into her downwards-pointed face, pressing their bodies together as she snaked her hair around to feel that well-muscled ass. The two stayed like that for some time, their forms held close together. The silk of Claudia’s bra was the only thing separating their breasts. Keris’s tongue explored her mouth, running over square bone-crushing teeth and sharp incisors, while her hand played with the hair at the back of the other woman’s neck. Claudia’s big hands were at her back, holding her in her grasp. Even through her leather skirt, Keris could feel the straining bulge in Claudia’s silk panties, something hot and hard pushing up against her. 

“You know,” Keris said when she let Claudia come up for air, “I’d heard what you were packing.” Her free hand undid Claudia’s bra, easing the straps off her broad shoulders. With a playful shove, she pushed the other woman onto her back. Her nipples were very dark and stood upright, pierced by golden bar-bells. “And you really like gold, don’t you?”

“My lady insists our loyalties be obvious even when we’re naked,” Claudia said, stretching out to sprawl over the fleshy sheets and pose for Keris. “And one of the benefits of being spawned by Ipithymia is that gold doesn’t burn me. It’s something to flaunt.” With her toes, she flipped up the front of Keris’s skirt. “Much like you have plenty to flaunt,” she added, eyes on Keris’s wet, puffy pussy and the empty ring of her pubic hair. “I like the fur, by the way. All that, for me?”

“All that for me,” Keris insisted. “Just like all that,” she gestured over Claudia with a hair tendril, “is for me.”

“Of course it is.” Claudia wiggled alluringly, her big toe creeping forwards to rest on Keris’s mons. “Do you want to take my panties off, or should I? Because I think you’re curious about what I have in them and you want to get your mouth on it.”

Keris sat back on her haunches. She felt… conflicted. On one hand, the banter with Claudia was fun, but on the other Keris was the one who was meant to be in charge here. Claudia had to know what she was doing, with these little nudges and constant push-back. She knew Claudia’s repute and she knew her own tastes. She’d submitted to Erembour and become a mindless beast, and she’d enjoyed it. There was a side of her which greatly enjoyed having its choices taken away. And Erembour had a melancholy kindness to her that Claudia’s lady did not.

No, that wouldn’t do at all.

“Claudia, darling, see,” Keris purred, a faintly serpentine sibilance creeping into the back of her throat, “you really do keep on trying to steal control from me. So I’m afraid I’m going to have to punish you.”

“Oh? Have I been a naughty girl?” Claudia asked, propping herself up on her elbows. “Are you going to punish me with that sweet little mouth of yours?”

Keris shook her head, but let her actions talk for her. Her hair lashed out, reaching under the bed to recover meaty tendon-cables that matched the ones that dangled from the ceiling. The four she seized had padded bronze shackles at their ends. “Left leg,” she suggested, looking down her nose at the other woman. “And it might be a good idea to make yourself comfortable.”

“Oh, some bondage. How novel,” Claudia said, offering her leg.

“I’m just starting off slow and easy,” Keris said, securing first her left leg, then the right. “You’ll see I can be much more creative if you keep on talking back.”

“I can hardly wait, your ladyship,” was the response she got. Claudia proceeded to give exaggerated orgasmic moans as Keris fastened the manacles around her wrists, and adjusted the tension so her limbs were suitably splayed.

“You aren’t taking this seriously,” Keris said, one had on her hip as she checked her handiwork and made sure that there wasn’t slack in the bonds, but also that it wouldn’t be hurting Claudia too much. “You promised you’d obey me.”

“I promised I’d submit to you,” Claudia said, very calmly for a woman with all four limbs bound. “If you wanted me to be _servile_ or to obey everything you said, you should have stated it in the contract. Plus, let’s be honest here. You’d be really bored if I wasn’t talking back. And-” she squirmed, giggles forcing their way out as Keris started to tickle the sole of one foot. “Oh, you vicious monster. Not the tickling. Just beat me with thorned ropes, why don’t you?”

“Maybe,” Keris said cheerfully, crawling between Claudia’s legs and propping her head up on her palms. Internally, she winced at the thought. No, that just wasn’t sexy at all. “But I thought I’d unwrap this package I find before me first,” she said, staring at Claudia’s bulging golden lacy panties, and the trail of tawny hair that emerged from them reaching up towards her navel and its Ipithymia crest.

Leaning in, she tugged at the top of the cloth with her teeth. Claudia smelled musky and sweaty, but there was a hint of an excited woman in there. Slowly she eased the cloth back, tugging it down to half-reveal the erection that had been tenting the fabric. “Nice.”

“Thanks,” Claudia said, looking down the length of her body at her. “If you wouldn’t mind, by the way, there’s side ties there, hidden under a fold. Since my legs are already tied up, could you use the ties rather than tearing it off me?”

“Yeah, I should have had you take them off,” Keris admitted ruefully, the moment somewhat ruined. She examined the garment. “Hidden side-ties. That’s clever.”

“Sweetie, this isn’t the first time I’ve wound up tied to a bed by someone who didn’t think to take my underwear off _first_ ,” Claudia said. “Working upon Ipithymia, you learn these things quickly. And I pay my tailor enough that I expect these kinds of features.”

Easing the golden cloth away, Keris rested her head on Claudia’s broad thigh and took a close look at… she would have called it her cock, but it wasn’t, not quite. The head shape under the foreskin was wider and broader than any she’d seen before, and the scrotum that nestled under it had no testes in it when she fondled it. And yet she could feel the warmth of its presence and watch it bounce slightly with each heartbeat. She leaned in and tasted its length, closing her eyes to savour that first lick.

“It’s my clit. You know, if you’re looking for the right word,” Claudia advised.

“Oh, huh.” That made sense. “Cool.”

“The hyena is the empress of beasts,” Claudia said. Her fleshy wrist-chains squelched as she tried to gesture to her groin. “I have their aspect when I wear a human form too. So my clit is this beauty here. Men, women and gods across Creation have bowed to it.”

“I can see why,” Keris said happily, wrapping her hand around it. “I’ve had longer, but you are _thick_ , girl.” Her hand shifted down, peeling back the foreskin to reveal the rounded opening on the head that really wasn’t anything like a man’s. With the tip of her little finger, she teased it, to soft noises from Claudia. Her other hand felt the sack underneath, finding no hidden opening until she got to the ring of the other woman’s asshole. She sprouted tiny flesh-weaving tendrils from her hands, sinking in for a spot of comparative anatomy. “Fun structure. Everything running through the clit. Childbirth must be a _bitch_.” 

“It is. Fortunately _I_ can make others bear my young, unlike my animal kin.”

“Mmm.” Keris started to slowly stroke the clit, tapping its head against her lower lip as she considered her options. “Will it hurt if anything goes… uh, into your clit?”

“I need to be properly warmed up when I feel like taking a dick, and it’s a lot easier with plenty of lube,” Claudia said frankly. “If I’d won the fight, I wouldn’t have let you.”

“Oh?” Keris eased her little finger deeper into the other woman, feeling her clench around her. “Does it make you feel… vulnerable? Does it make you feel weak? Because you’re already wet.” She pushed a little deeper in, watching the head of her clit roll in on itself, like a garment being turned inside out. She resisted the urge to add a second finger. “I might have to do this to myself some day for some lucky girl.”

“You - ah! - you can do that?”

“The Hungry Swamp is in me.” Keris slid her finger out and sucked on it, tasting Claudia’s excitement. “And flesh is a plaything.”

With that said, she dipped her head down and took the head of Claudia’s erect clit into her mouth. The texture was smoother and more rubbery than a man’s, and she slowly ran her tongue around the rim to get used to the novel flavour. Claudia let out a little whimper, which turned into a gasp when Keris started to lick the slit on top. Below, her hand started to work at the shaft, sliding against the velvet-soft flesh with a motion which grew faster as drool dribbled down to lubricate her. She kept up the motion of her hand as she drew back, hovering over the warmth to plant kisses on the spongy head.

“I like this,” Keris said affably, tucking back her hair so Claudia could see what she was doing. “Do you?”

“I have no complai-ah!” She was cut off as Keris dipped down again, this time going past the head. Her lips locked around the solid shaft, leaving streaks of purple lip paint. Her hand didn’t stop its jerking, dragging the foreskin back so the full head was entirely revealed. Only moans and gasps escaped from Claudia as Keris played with the sensitive tip, lavishing attention there. And then just as suddenly Keris pulled away, leaving Claudia’s clit erect and straining, bouncing with each heart-beat.

“You liked that,” Keris said huskily, letting purple-tinged spit drip down onto Claudia’s belly.

“I n-now have one complaint. That you stopped,” Claudia said, swallowing.

“I know.” Pulling her little bottle of lip paint from her corset, Keris carefully and very slowly applied a fresh coating, and then placed a deliberate and perfect kiss on the underside of Claudia’s right breast. Just as carefully and just as slowly, she once again painted her lips, and then tucked the bottle away. Claudia had started to soften, but Keris’s hands brought her back up to full hardness. “Hmm. Now, what to do now?”

“You’re the boss,” Claudia said. “I bet you’d show me for talking back if you started sucking my clit again, though.”

“You know, I know you think that oral puts you in charge,” Keris said, resting one hand on the other woman’s hip. She flashed a leopard’s smile for a moment, two rows of vicious incisors between four vicious canines. “I don’t. Really, when it comes down to it, the one in charge is the one with the sharp teeth close to the other person’s junk. I was going to sit on your face, but given the way you’re acting, you’d probably nip the inside of my thighs.”

“You’d enjoy it,” Claudia leered.

“Yes, I probably would. A bit of pain makes things more fun,” Keris said, straddling Claudia. The woman’s swollen clit brushed against the leather of her skirt, leaving streaks of saliva and traces of lip paint where it touched. “But right now, I think I’m going to ride you until you beg.”

“Don’t threaten me with a good time,” Claudia grinned, flexing her hips slightly.

“Didn’t say what you’d be begging for,” Keris whispered. Playfully, she flipped up the front of her skirt, with a lock of hair, letting the demon lord take in the spectacle. With her hand, she stroked the massive clit, aiming it for her. Claudia’s gaze was locked down there, eager with anticipation. Exhaling, Keris lowered herself down onto the clit. It was so thick that she had to take it slowly, feeling the stretch, the faint burn of her muscles. She only got the head in before she lifted herself off, grinding against her length to spread their lubricant around.

“Having problems?” Claudia asked smugly, giving off the air that she wanted to be resting her hands behind the back of her head.

Rather than respond, Keris lowered herself down again, and this time didn’t stop. She gasped as the head spread her, and the noise became a moan at the back of her throat as she let gravity follow her to the base. She looked archly down at Claudia, whose lips were parted and whose hands were straining as if she wanted to take Keris by the hips and start moving her. “Nice clit,” she said smugly. She flexed her thighs, lifting herself up half-way along its length, before letting herself fall again. “Very good width, and the length isn’t too painful.” Another bounce, slicker and wetter, and she stifled a moan. “Mmm. I’m going to have fun with this.”

Keris was in charge, and she loved it. Soon she gave herself to the motion and the feelings of her bouncing, controlling the pace for her own delight. Claudia was her toy, a warm hot thing inside her who was pushing against the fires in her core. This big, strong woman who had managed to strike her was supine below her, trying to thrust with her hips without leverage, and it felt so good. A lock of hair snaked down to her own clit, and she opened a little mouth there to suck at it. Her hands were at her breasts, rolling her nipples between her figures and squeezing.

But the sweat Keris was working up was sinking into the neomah-leather she wore, and the preserved skin of those courtesan demons still held something of their nature. As the leather darkened, it became more supple and softer against the skin and started to waft its innate aphrodisiac perfumes. Each time she took a deep inhalation, it felt like her nipples got harder and her pussy got hotter and wetter. Claudia wasn’t fairing any better, though the fact that a beautiful woman was riding her shaft probably was the major factor in her whines and struggling attempts to touch herself.

Fuck, she’d missed dick, and a cock-sized clit was just as good when she was bottoming out on it. Leaning back and resting her hands behind her heels she rolled her hips and let that big fat hot thing rub against just the right spot on her inner walls. She kept up the pace until her thighs started to flutter, clenching on the muscular body between her legs. Her heart was a drum in her ears, matching the pounding outside, and her rapid shallow breaths made her breasts and the heavy rings in them jiggle. She was so close she nearly came there and then when all four of her piercings arced at once, and electric stimulation linked up her nipples, navel and clit. She wanted to- no! Not yet.

With a groan, Keris flopped forwards, and forced her hips to be still. It was hard. She was nearly there. In the humidity of the Pulsing Floor she looked like she had been oiled up, sweat beading on her forehead and running down the arc of her breasts (such delicious stimulation), before soaking into her corset and releasing more of that neomah-smell that made her hips twitch every time she breathed in. And then there was the feeling of her natural wetness dripping out of her. Hers, and Claudia’s combined. Because they were both women and Keris’s pussy was milking her.

“Tired already?” Claudia asked. For someone who had been just laying there, she was nearly as soaked as Keris; her hair dark, her body beading with sweat, her dark nipples rock hard and rising and falling with each gasp. “Keep on going. With a cunt like that, I believe in you.”

Still mocking her. With a sweet smile, Keris leaned even further forwards, resting her elbows on the bed either side of Claudia’s body and propping her chin up on her palms. “Have you been enjoying the sight?”

“Hell yes.”

Keris clenched down on the warmth inside her, rippling the muscles against the thick shaft. “Hell yes, _ma’am_.”

Claudia gave her a slightly patronising smile. “Hell yes, ma’am.”

“Do you think you’re in control here? That I’m just here to pleasure you and put on a show?”

“Why, Keris,” Claudia said, “isn’t that why you arranged the meeting in the first place? You wanted to put on a show?”

“Claudia, right now, you’re my entertainment. And I might have been using you as a meat-dildo, but trust me, we’re barely getting started.” Keris dipped her head down, and placed a kiss on the nape of the other woman’s neck, leaving a deep purple lip-mark there. “I’m not some cultist who’s helplessly awestruck. And I’m not the only one who’s getting spread.” Slowly, she worked an internal muscle. Deep with her, a tongue of the Hungry Swamp pushed into the rounded opening of Claudia’s clit.

“I don’t- oh!” Claudia’s pupils contracted. “I… this feels…” She gasped, and the gasp turned into a breathy moan. Her arms strained against the chains, corded tendons standing out, and the muscles in her thighs started to tremble. She looked up at Keris with eyes suddenly lacking confidence. “This is… new.”

“I’ll be generous, my little pet,” Keris told her. She licked her upper lips, while in her lower ones the other tongue shifted and thickened. Oh, this was making Claudia even wider within her, and if it hadn’t been for the previous riding this wouldn’t have been fun. “If you don’t like it, you can just beg me to stop. Beg me and grovel, and we’ll go back to how things were before. And there’ll be a forfeit you’ll have to pay as we agreed I’d be in charge for a scream.” Keris lifted her hips, holding them up for a moment, before slamming back down with an impact of flesh that spread Claudia even wider. The other woman’s eyes rolled back and she let out a shuddery, breathy, vulnerable moan. “Are you going to beg? Pet?”

Claudia wet her lips, and swallowed, breathing quickly and shallowly. “Bitch, I can take anything you dish out,” she managed. “You beat me in the a-ah! Arena! But you’re not breaking me in the bedroom.”

Opening her mouth wider than any human could, Keris let a thick tongue spill out. She licked Claudia all the way from below her breasts to her hairline. “I don’t want to break you, pet,” she murmured, relishing the taste of the arousal-fear-desire sweat. “It’s not fun to play with a broken toy.”

She brought her hips down again, and again. But she never let a pattern build up. When Claudia seemed to be getting used to the rhythm of heavy hip-slamming thrusts, she sank down and rolled her hips, grinding on the hot, thick length within her. Then she paused in place, squeezing down with her inner muscles while she pushed into the opening of the demonic clit inside her. She kept her eyes locked on Claudia’s, a little hot feeling growing inside her as the realisation dawned in those golden eyes that all the control lay between Keris’s legs. That she could - and was - going to deny her a rhythm of stimulation, pulling her arousal higher and higher but denying her release. Each little moan and gasp and groan that escaped Claudia’s throat was like music to her ears. And - oh! - there she was, biting her bottom lip to try to stifle her noises. To try to resist the urge to beg, even as the constant irregular stimulation took its toll. A pink flush mottled her face, breasts and belly. Her nipples stood up from her small breasts, inviting Keris to pinch them and draw out a tremble that spread through her whole body. Their mixed juices matted in Claudia’s tawny pubes; a little trail of drool dripped from the corner of her mouth. 

“You know.” Her hips rolling, sliding against that delightful warmth filling her. “Claudia, my pet.” Withdrawing that inner tongue to hear the other woman’s unwilling whine, only to draw a gasp as she pushed it back in, thicker than before. “You know what you need to do.”

“Wh-what?” Claudia whimpered at the back of her throat, biting down on her lower lip. “What the f-ah! The fuck. Do you want?”

“Beg me.” Hips still, and her palms opening little mouths as they rested on Claudia’s breasts, gently sucking on her rock-hard nipples. “Beg me to let you come.” Each slow word accompanied by a grind back and forth. Then sudden hard riding, followed by just as sudden stillness. 

Keris leaned in and licked that trail of drool away from Claudia’s mouth, before kissing her on the lips. “Beg me to let you come. I promise you, Claudia. I won’t let you come until you do.”

“Bitch,” Claudia growled.

“No, that’s what you are. You’re my bitch, Lambskin Hyena.” Keris leaned back, arms behind her, so Claudia could see the roll of her belly muscles as she ground her hips, watching the dilation of her pupils and the congestion in her nose and feeling the way her pleasure gate was just about to open and-

-stopping. Letting it ebb. Watching the outrage in those golden eyes, the desperation, the lust. And feeling her own nipples tingle as lightning arced between the piercings and once again, feeling how _good_ it felt to take a proud person up to the edge and then let them short. But Claudia wasn’t Testolagh. She didn’t feel the same way about her. Right?

“I can hold you just short of the edge for a very, very long time,” Keris told her, not letting the moment of doubt show in her words. “Taking you up,” she rose up her length, “and down. Up and down. Up and down.”

“I,” Claudia’s gasped words were an octave lower, “I… you don’t want me to beg. Not let. You’re still having fun.”

Keris beamed at that, genuinely surprised and even delighted. She _did_ like this woman and her unexpected insight. Just for that, she leaned in and kissed her on the nose. “Don’t feel the need to hold out too long. We can still have more fun,” she murmured fondly, moving slowly and gently and letting the aphrodisiac scent of the neomah-leather fill Claudia’s nostrils. “This isn’t my only game.

“But you are going to beg to keep on playing, my little golden-eyed bitch.”

Claudia tilted her head up, and kissed Keris’s lips. “Fuck you. Make me.”

“Oh, you are just a treat,” Keris said, and her hands bit down on Claudia’s nipples until she whimpered. The other woman tried to thrust up into her. “Have fun, darling.”

Keris brought her to the edge again, let her down, and did this again and again. Each time bringing her a little closer as she learned the responses of the other woman’s body. Each time changing up the rhythm, the pattern, the thickness of the tongue. And it took a little longer than she would have liked to make Claudia beg.

But in the end, that’s just what she did.


	3. Beware the Serpent’s Kisses

“Please-please-please, fuck, let me come!”

Keris smiled. Finally. Though in all fairness to Claudia, she’d lasted impressively long. Still, she’d bent her pride enough to beg, and that meant the real fun of the scream could start.

“Alright, enough,” she ordered, slapping her toy’s thigh and biting her lip. She was getting a little too close to coming herself, and she wanted to hold onto the flush of arousal for what came next. “Stop, stop, stop.”

Beneath her, Claudia forced herself to be still, although her hips jerked a couple more times before she brought herself under control. “I... begged,” she panted. “Let... let me come. You said. You would. When I begged.” Her voice was ragged, and Keris grinned as she climbed off, biting her lip to contain a moan at the feel of the thick clit pulling out of her and leaving her empty. 

“I did, and you did too,” she purred, unlocking the shackles at Claudia’s wrists and ankles. “And very prettily, too. Such a good bitch. So of course you get to come, my pet. But I didn’t say you’d get to come right away.” She let that sink in for a few seconds, and chuckled at the groan of protest when it made it through. 

“Fuck, no, no, you _said_!” Wetness dribbled down her thigh. Claudia’s foreskin was fully rolled back, and her head was deep red, the opening on top clenching open and closed and dribbling white froth.

“No, it’s far too soon to let you come _now_. Instead...” She had to use a couple of hair tendrils to support her rather wobbly legs for a few steps, but Claudia was still staring at the ceiling and getting her breath back, so Keris was pretty sure she hadn’t seen. “I said that I had some alchemical toys on this floor, and I think it’s time to play with them. Come over here and make yourself useful, hmm?” Her grin turned taunting. “I need a stool to reach them~”

Claudia grumbled, but obeyed, heaving herself up - on much shakier legs, Keris was pleased to see - and kneeling in front of Keris on her hands and knees. It was such a ridiculous image that Keris couldn’t help but giggle at it - the tall, wild warrior on all fours for her, mohawk brushing her back from the angle she had her head at to look at Keris, her breasts and erect clit dangling sore and hard below her. With a pleased hum, Keris hopped up on the broad, muscled back presented to her and tickled the wall just under a thin line where two folds of flesh met.

With a breathy sigh, they opened - and opened, and opened, until a mouth-like orifice the size of a cupboard was gaping at her. Within, the resemblance to a mouth ended - the walls were dry and cool to the touch instead of moist and hot, and from the space Keris retrieved a coil of white rope and a silver box about the length of her forearm, extensively decorated with faces twisted in ecstasy.

“There we go,” she said to her stool, pinching the upper lip of the cupboard to make it close with a whimper and hopping off. “Now let’s see what I’ve got in here, hmm?” Tossing the rope on the bed and cracking the toybox open, she ignored Claudia getting up and peering over her shoulder at the contents as her fingers danced across the rack of vials, beakers and pots it held. “Hmm. I think... this,” she plucked a beaker of lilac fluid that frothed a little like milk, “aaaand this,” choosing a half-empty pot of gel where vivid green and deep pink swirled together but never mixed, “and... hmm... hah, yes. _This_.”

This last was a shallow covered dish of white paste in which silvery flecks caught the light of the lamps and sparkled. Keris checked it was untouched, nodded in satisfaction and covered it again, arranging her chosen toys on the bedside table and shutting the box again. It went back in its cupboard - this time without any need for a stool, her hair reaching up to pack it away without much thought - and Keris held out the purple beaker to Claudia.

“Drink up!” she chirped. Claudia looked at her, then sceptically at the beaker, then back to her. Keris rolled her eyes and took a demonstrative sip.

“It’s safe, obviously. And it’ll make this more fun and make it feel _really_ good when you come. So come on, drink up!”

Claudia shrugged, assessed the beaker again with those golden eyes that saw so much, and downed it. Her expression turned thoughtful at the taste, and she cocked her head.

“It tastes like the sweat of neomah,” she said. “An aphrodisiac? I hardly think you need one.”

“Oh, nothing so crude,” Keris said happily. “But you’ll find that out in a bit. Now, come on. Back to bed. Down on your back. I’m going to tie you up and see you thrash, all pretty-like.”

“If you insist,” Claudia said, and Keris raised an eyebrow at the deliberate disinterest in her tone. She lay back down on the bed, lifting her arms. “I thought you were only using bondage as a warm-up, though.”

“Oh, I was,” Keris shot back. “And I’m not tying you up with those again.” She kicked the fleshy manacle closest to her back under the bed. “No, those were just a convenient thing to start with. This is going to be _art._ And I need you kneeling for it, so back up and on your knees.”

With a faint groan, Claudia pulled herself up to her knees, her stiff red erection bouncing with the movement. “Do you want my hands in front or behind?” she asked, with the attitude of long practice. She might seem to prefer to top, but she clearly had plenty of experience with submission. “Urgh. Not such a nice aftertaste, by the way. You might want to work on that. It goes down fine, but…” She pulled a face.

“Behind,” Keris ordered, pulling Claudia’s hands behind her and loosening the rope hank. “And yeah, I know, I’m working on it. I tried to get it fruit-flavoured, but the acids didn’t play well with the rest, and anything sweet isn’t enough to cover the aftertaste.”

“What happened when you tested that one?” Claudia asked, clearly probing to try to find out exactly what it was that she’d drunk.

Keris wrinkled her nose in annoyance, dressing the rope and starting to loop it around Claudia’s arms. “I got a beaker of very expensive sludge that soured in a day,” she admitted. “And it denatured the... well, you’ll see.” Tying wrists to elbows and twining it around Claudia’s forearms securely, she stepped back to admire her handiwork. The position forced Claudia’s chest out, and Keris grinned at what it did to her breathing. “Comfortable? Not too strained?” she asked, reaching out to massage those pretty breasts, running her thumbs over the gold bar-bells in the nipples.

“Quite well done,” Claudia said conversationally. “Mmm. Who did you study under?” That, on the other hand, had a hint of a leered innuendo.

“Oh, I’ve had a lot of teachers,” Keris replied breezily, with an amused look that told Claudia she knew very well what the demon was doing. “None really stand out for alchemy. Up.” She coaxed Claudia to kneel up higher so that Keris could tie her ankles together, winding the rope up in looped hitches to her knees, then binding her ankles to her thighs. It left Claudia sitting on her heels, legs thoroughly wrapped in demonic spidersilk, with her arms bound behind her and her clit jutting up from her lap.

“Actually, I meant who you learned the ropework from? Most people can’t get a knot so fitting on the first go. Especially with my body.” She was very affable for someone who’d been so trussed up, but the little shudders in her clit told Keris of her excitement.

Keris chuckled. “Well. That I’ve picked up from a fair few different places too. Though I’d be lying if I didn’t say Sasi hadn’t given me a lot of practice, as,” she raised a knowing eyebrow, “I suspect you’d already guessed after our show last Calibration.”

“Please convey my compliments to Lady Sasimana, then,” Claudia said. “She’s a rather good customer on the Street, but we’ve barely met. A few words at parties, perhaps. Do you think she’d be more interested in a more intimate dinner, perhaps? Perhaps just you and her in attendance?” The hyena’s grin is knowing.

A low hiss escaped before Keris could help herself, and she felt her hair flick agitatedly. Sharing Sasi with Testolagh was bad enough, and she’d never been especially happy about how freely her love slept around in Hell. Turning away from Claudia, she picked up the half-empty ceramic pot of gel, in which green and pink swirled around each other without ever mixing into brown. Scooping out a dollop of it on her finger, she held it up for examination.

“Talk about Sasi when you’re free for her. Right now you’re on my time. So, my trussed-up little bitch, let’s test you. You’ve got an excellent nose. Can you guess what this is? And what it does?”

Claudia took a sniff, nose wrinkling up at the salty-yet-herbaceous smell. “Ooooh, that smells cold, but…” she screwed up her brow. “Now it’s getting warm. That’s…” Her eyes met Keris’s. “Aww, how thoughtful of you, Keris. My back was getting a bit sore tied up on your bed. You’re so considerate.” 

Keris had to concede that this was a remarkable amount of lip from someone tied up like a spider’s dinner.

“Very good,” she praised, and smeared the gel where Claudia’s neck met her shoulders, rubbing it in and watching her reaction to the shock of cold and then the slow transition to burning heat. “I did come up with this for muscle pain originally. But...”

Another scoop, and this one traced two arches over the top of Claudia’s breasts, disappearing into her dark skin as Keris rubbed it in with slow circular motions. She took the opportunity to get a double-handful in the process, and squeezed lightly, rubbing her palms across Claudia’s nipples. Icefire gel on sore muscles was a relief - on tender areas, it was sweet torture. Especially when someone was, say, so tied up they couldn’t touch themselves where it had been put.

“I wonder where else I can put this, hmm?” Keris smiled, slowly undoing her skirt ties at each hip and letting it fall with a flutter. Her skin was stained lavender where it had been, and she hopped up onto the bed, turning to Claudia and letting her see the lust-sweat beaded on her skin.

“Be a dear and lick this off, would you?” she ordered, pulling Claudia closer with a hand on the back of her head.

“Yes, mistress,” Claudia said, leaning in. Her tongue was slightly rough against Keris’s sensitised skin, but she knew what she was doing as she lavished attention on the purple stains. Keris could see her length twitch every time she licked at a new region, and a slow, fat oozing bead of frothy white left a dangling trail out of her tip. She licked at Keris’s thighs, and Keris turned to bring her bottom in contact with her face, going for the stains where she had been sitting. A faint exhalation escaped Keris as Claudia’s tongue worshipped her curves.

“That’s a good girl. Just like that. Perfect.” Keris let her finish - tugging her hair back sharply when Claudia tried to nose at her pussy - then dropped down suddenly to settle in her lap, trapping her clit between them. She pushed her hips forward deliberately, feeling the hard length twitch helplessly between Claudia’s bare abs and the aphrodisiac-laced neomah-leather corset. “Now, where might more of my gel shut that smart mouth of yours up? Any clever ideas?”

Breathing in through her nose and out through the back of her throat, breath rasping, Claudia took a few moments to reply. “Well, I’ve got a real itch in the small of my back where-”

The third scoop went on her inner thighs, bare inches from her sack but not quite close to touch it. Claudia cut off with a strangled noise, and clenched her teeth against the burn. Keris smiled lazily, driving her hips forward again, rubbing her belly from side to side to leave more light lavender stains on her clit. Taunting.

“Let’s play a game,” she suggested, holding down a giggle. “I’m going to ride you like this, face to face, straddling your lap. And while I do, I’m going to work my way inwards as I cover your tits with this. If you come before I get to your nipples, you get to choose whether you want it there. Does that sound like fun?”

Panting, brow flushed, sweat dripping down from her temples, Claudia locked her teeth together. “Good job,” she croaked. “Really… helping my thighs. Relax. For you.”

“... you know, I’m almost impressed you’re still coherent enough to talk back,” Keris admitted, leaning back for a moment. She smiled sweetly and rose up to let Claudia’s clit rest lightly against her entrance. Within her, tendrils of flesh squirmed and tugged, leaving her wet and ready enough that her next move wouldn’t hurt.

“Let’s change that,” she purred, and sank down to the hilt in one motion.

She didn’t bounce in Claudia’s lap. That would give the game away too soon. Instead she rocked, steady and rhythmically, as her inner walls clenched and squeezed around Claudia’s clit in ways no mortal woman could. The heat of the room mingled with low moans, mingled heavy breathing and the rasp of neomah-leather over skin, broken by low moans and stifled grunts. And all the time, Keris’s hands worked, dipping into the pot of gel and smearing more across Claudia’s breasts, working her way inwards, rubbing and stroking and squeezing while the icefire burnt hot and cold.

It took longer than Keris expected. Probably because of Claudia’s attention being drawn away from her clit to her tits by the constant stimulation. But she slowly went from hapless attempts to bounce Keris on her lap to a worried sense of confusion, glancing down at where they were joined with a bewildered frown. And eventually she jerked and gasped and bucked, the desperate thrust of her hips made awkward by her bonds. Keris knew what she’d just felt, the sense of reaching the top of an arduously steep staircase and putting a foot down on a step that wasn’t there. The pieces slotted together, and she gave a cry of betrayal and despair.

“Why... why can’t I come?” Claudia sounded dazed, desperate and slightly delirious, which wasn’t an uncommon combination for people in Keris’s bed. “I should... why...”

“Oh, darling,” Keris crooned, scratching her nails down Claudia’s breast and leaving faint red marks in their wake. “That beaker you drank, before we started? I did tell you it wasn’t an aphrodisiac, though you were right that it’s made with neomah secretions.” She took another dollop of gel and delicately covered both of Claudia’s nipples, bracing herself as the piercing cold and burning heat made Claudia tremble, then buck and shriek, almost throwing Keris off her.

“I call it ‘Mournful Denial’. I came up with it myself, which was _fun_.” Especially for the Gales she split off for herself to test it on. “It’s actually a paralytic,” she continued smugly, tweaking both stiff peaks and massaging the rest of the gel into the areolae as Claudia keened. “It blocks the sacral chakra and allows essence to pool in it, damming the flow from going any further and putting it under more and more pressure. Or in other words...”

She leaned in, pressing her whole body against Claudia’s, squeezing her powerful inner muscles around Claudia’s clit. “Every time you try to come,” she breathed in the demon’s ear, “it gets trapped at the base of your clit. Begging to be let out. But tied up and helpless. Just like you are now. Until I let it go. Because I’m in charge here. And _this_ ,” she clenched her thighs and felt Claudia try to buck upwards into them. “This doesn’t come until I say it does.”

She felt the hard length jerk and pulse, sheathed deep inside her pussy. Another attempt at climax. But it couldn’t finish like it wanted to, and the orgasm stayed trapped with its predecessor, pressed into too small a space under mounting pressure. There was a limit to alchemy, of course. Her little denial-drug couldn’t hold against any amount of stimulation like Testolagh’s oath had. Four or five orgasms, perhaps six, were the extent of what it could keep trapped in the sacral chakra. After that, they’d break loose and Claudia would experience all of them at once, back-to-back and even stronger for being pent up so long.

That was fine. Keris could do a lot with two or three more stored orgasms.

There wasn’t any smart response from Claudia this time. Just a hurt, offended, _desperate_ noise at the back of her throat. She pushed forwards into Keris, thrusting her breasts into hers, rubbing - no, _wiping_ \- at her.

For a moment, Keris felt nothing. And then the cold sank into her breasts, like ice cubes pressed against her flesh, bringing her nipples to painfully hard peaks before it started to burn. And burn. And _burn_.

“Ssshhhit,” she hissed, her hair lashing behind her. Her hands jerked as she instinctively brought them back to massage the heat away, stopping inches away as she remembered they were still covered in gel residue.

“Fffine then,” she snarled, baring her teeth. “If that’sss how you want to play.”

She pulled herself off Claudia’s lap, gasping at the sudden emptiness. She had sipped at Mournful Denial too, but the mercury in her veins immunised her to such small doses, and she didn’t want to come now. Not while she was still _pissed off_. Digging her nails into her hands, she grabbed the covered dish from the table and - cruelly - transferred a silver spoonful of the silver-flecked white paste into her hand without wiping the gel off first.

Then she froze. This. This was... _exactly_ what she’d done to Testolagh. She’d got mad at him, and decided to make him _suffer_. Oh, suffer in a way he’d enjoy. But that was still what it had been. Lashing out in anger. Punishing him for having the audacity to annoy her. To talk back to her. To not just fall slavishly at her feet.

But she didn’t _want_ someone who’d just fall at her feet, not really. That would be boring. If Ney had taught her anything, it was that she liked a little fight in her fucking, some roughness in her romances. It was fun to pretend to be angry at Ney, and even to _be_ a little angry. To want to smack him, secure in the knowledge it wouldn’t ruin things.

What did that make her, then? Someone who... who wanted someone who’d make her mad so she could punish them? Who enjoyed... hurting... the people... she liked.

...

... fuck. This was what Calesco had been wrestling with since Kuha.

Glancing back, she saw that she’d knocked Claudia over. The other woman was face-down on the fleshy bed, rubbing her chest and grinding her hips against the skin-like fabric, whimpering faintly. Desperately seeking release as she humped the bed.

“Hey,” Keris said sharply. “None of that.” Her hair lashed out, lifting Claudia back up and whipping twice across her breasts in rebuke. “Look at me. Claudia. Eyes on me. Do you understand?” If she’d lost lucidity, Keris would have to change plans. She wasn’t going to use the paste without warning. There was a line between sexual sadism and torture.

Claudia’s breaths were sharp and shallow, her eyes screwed shut. She had to swallow three or four times before she could stop drooling on herself, the spit running down her body to her desperately twitching hips. “Holy fuck. That hurt. I… it’s mostly passed. Only hot. Not burning. But…” She gasped for breath. “Blaming you if this is a new fetish.” She cracked an eye open. “It’s fun on the breasts. Not when it gets on the nipple,” she added weakly. “Sounded like you agree.”

“Yeah.” Keris couldn’t stop a wince, staring at her left hand with its spoonful of white paste and gel-residue. She’d been about to give Claudia a handjob with that. If the gel alone hurt on the nipple, the combination of both on the _clit_... she couldn’t imagine. It definitely wouldn’t be pleasurable, though. Honestly, it might be enough to make someone beg for death.

Swallowing, she snapped her fingers and gestured to the cream. In her left hand, it wasn’t having any effect on her, which she was quietly thankful for.

“One more toy left,” she said. “And this is the one I’m proudest of. But... well, if the gel alone knocked you for that much of a loop, perhaps this is too much for you.” She paused. “I won’t lie. With the gel as well, it’ll hurt like hell. But if you want me to use this, your next orgasm will be for real. I’ll let you back out if you want.” Even if wasting a teaspoon of the paste would have an eye-watering cost attached to it.

Claudia coughed, and forced herself to grin. “Aww, something that pricey for little old me?” she said, with clearly false bravado. Her shoulders and thighs trembled faintly, her nipples might as well have been cast from lead for how hard and dark they were. “I… I…” For all her bravery, Keris could hear the fear in her voice. “Aww, fuck it. In for a penny, in for a pounding. You’re willing to spend this much in that little glob so it’s gonna be r-really extreme. It’d be a waste to miss it. R-right?”

Keris smiled gently.

“Right.”

And covering Claudia’s nipples with a pair of hair-tendrils to make sure none of it got on them, she brought her hand to her lover’s chest and circled her breasts with the mixture as quickly as she could.

It took effect in seconds. She’d made this paste from her own po’s feathers, laboriously gathered from the Rim and exported into the world outside her souls through fearful sorceries. Crushing them into a fine powder and simmering them in a mix of stimulants, she’d brewed a paste that brought, for a short time, the same inhuman sensitivity her serpent-self could share with her. Claudia had just enough time to gasp at the surge of sensation - enough to feel every tiny pulse of blood under her skin, every infinitesimal movement of air, the finest details of the sticky layer that covered her breasts.

Then the cold hit. And after it, the burn.

She didn’t scream. The shock drove the breath out of her in a wheeze, her eyes going wide and her pupils narrowing to points. Her biceps bulged as she strained helplessly against the ropes, but the spidersilk held, and all she could do was throw herself backwards onto the bed, thrashing her head back and forth and twisting herself around to try and rub away the fire on her skin.

Keris’s hair caught her before she could make the mistake of pressing her chest against the covers. Even so, the side of her breast brushed against the skin-like texture of the sheets, and _now_ she screamed, hips jolting forward. Keris lifted her up with a grunt, waiting for the burn to fade away and settle into a bone-deep warmth. Then she set Claudia upright again, wiped the worst of the gel off her hands on the sheet, and unbuttoned her corset.

“I know, I know,” she murmured soothingly, a hair tendril wiping a rag across Claudia’s sweat-soaked forehead. “It feels like more than you can bear. Shut your eyes. Let the feelings wash over you, and then recede. Like water. Breathe. That’s it. Good girl.”

The silver toybox held a general-purpose neutraliser, and she dashed the clear liquid against her palms and rubbed them together, making sure to get all the remaining gel off. Then she stuck a finger into her mouth and transmuted the saliva into pure water, letting it run down and bead at her fingertip.

“Now,” she crooned. “Brace yourself...”

A single drop fell from her finger to fall on Claudia’s left breast, and run down the valley between them.

“Oh Malfeas from whom all descends oh Malfeas oh King oh Malfeas, let me endure let me survive let me endure,” Claudia prayed, head falling to stare disbelievingly at her breasts as if someone had pulled it on a harness.

“Yes, see?” Keris let another droplet fall, this one on the other breast, which ran down over its curve and clung for a second to her nipple before continuing its journey down. “Isn’t that good? Isn’t it such _sweet_ torment?”

Claudia moaned, and the moan made her chest heave. That motion of her breasts only gave her more stimulation. “The fuck is this?” she whined, nose congested.

“I call it the Serpent’s Kiss,” Keris breathed, leaning low so that her breath fanned across Claudia’s chest. “It’s made from me. From my own body, my own self. Nobody else in all the realms has taken in the exact same mix of the All-Makers’ gifts that I have. It’s utterly unique.”

She reached down with a hair tendril and retrieved the tube of lip paint from where her corset had fallen. Slowly, with utmost tenderness, she wrote the letters of her name across Claudia’s chest, letting her feel the drag of the glossy product, the stickiness of the purple stain.

Helplessly, Claudia rocked back and forth on her heels, muscles straining against the ropes. The feeling of the lip-paint against her too-sensitive skin seemed to strip away all words from her.

“Now,” Keris said. She checked the dish. She’d used about a fifth of what was there, and she didn’t want to use another full teaspoon. No, for this...

A thin braid reached out and scooped up a tiny bead of it, no larger than the head of a pin.

“I think you’ve earned the right to come,” she whispered, lowering it to the very tip of Claudia’s clit and positioning herself over it. “Ready?”

Still no words, but Claudia’s eager noise sounded like a ‘please’.

Keris swiped it over her head, and sank onto her once more, pushing inside her with a tongue to spread the tiny bead within her as she did.

It was enough. Claudia threw her head back and howled, loud enough to deafen Keris’s ears and be heard throughout the Tower. Her eyes rolled back in her head and her whole body spasmed in long, rolling waves. It wasn’t just one orgasm she was having, it was both of those Keris had trapped while riding her, as well as any she’d tried to have while humping the bed. And all were stronger for being contained so long, and all were pulsing through the super-sensitised head of her clit.

Keris felt herself begin to tip over the edge as well, satisfaction and Claudia’s frantic, instinctive thrusts finally bringing her to climax. She closed her eyes with a smile, and let her po rise up in her skin, and joined Claudia in the arms of ecstasy for what seemed like endless moments. She felt every contraction within Claudia, and that set off a fresh wave in her which only spurred her pet on to higher heights. Transcendence required no thoughts at all, only feelings.

Eventually time intruded itself on their coupling, and enlightenment passed. Keris returned first, but stayed where she was, spread wide open by that lovely thick clit which still weakly convulsed within her. She maintained their kiss, drinking in Claudia’s second-hand lust and let desire rise again.

After all, she had a whole scream of control of her plaything, and she was going to use it.


	4. Past and Future Friends

Once they’d recovered, and as hunger started to take its toll, Keris led a leashed Claudia to the dining room of the Pulsing Floor. The demon lord was still not quite lucid at first, and was greatly suspicious that this was some new trick, but the meal prepared by the automaton servants was excellent and entirely innocuous, and the conversation was - if not chaste - at least between equals. 

“I am impressed,” Claudia said, after tasting the light and airy meat-bun that was the first course. Unconsciously, she ran a finger along the collar Keris had slipped around her neck. It was all she wore.

“At the cooking?” Keris smiled. Her light silk robe wasn’t belted, and she could follow where Claudia’s eyes kept drifting. “Yes, I suppose so. It is something of an all-day breakfast here, but the automata have been wrought such that they assume you’re always getting out of bed.”

“Well, yes. But it’s not just that. You are a force to be reckoned with in the bedroom.”

Sweeping back her hair, Keris laughed. “You don’t say.”

“I do say. This is the eye of a professional.”

“Hmm.” Keris leaned over, taking a meat bun from Claudia’s plate with her chopsticks. “Evaluate me.”

“Is that an order?”

“Yes.” She was genuinely interested, and not just because it fed her vanity.

“As you wish.” Claudia took a cup of wine, swirling it around. “Keris, my lady, you are an exceptionally beautiful woman, with an eye for fashion and who dresses herself with consummate skill. You know these things, of course. But when I say that of all the princess and princesses, houris and courtesans, devotees and decadents who have come to Ipithymia - ah, perhaps you would like a tale? Something to explain the depths of my knowledge.”

“A tale?” Keris asked, amused.

“Long ago, as men reckon time - over a thousand Calibrations ago, Ipithymia was given a hyena as a gift by the dragon-child prince of a great city of the South. This prince was a proud man, whose tastes tended to the extreme. But despite his own dissolution, he was still powerful, and mighty, and sought to maintain his rule. He offered Ipithymia many great riches beside the hyena; slaves by the thousands, good gold and subtle silver and many colours of jade, the willing souls of his advisors given over to her worship. But what he wanted from her was for her to impart her power and wisdom into his crown, so he would be able to rule over the bodies of those sworn to him as she does, and so all would look upon him and lust for him and not think to overthrow him.

“That, she took offence to - and yet she did as he asked. Lupana, who had been her self-wisdom and who had failed her too many times was taken to the flesh pits screaming where she was reduced by torturous dissolution into an eye-shaped yellow topaz that could sit upon the crown. She lay with the prideful prince, and gave him his crown. And then she took the corpse of Lupana and fed it to the hyena and fed her other things rich with her nature so she grew wise and strong and cunning. 

Claudia took a sip, wetting her lips. “That was my birth, Keris, more than a thousand years ago, during the time the dragon-children called the Shogunate. So when I say you are an exceptional woman whose like is seen only a few times in a millennium, I know of what I speak. And when I say that your talents in the bedroom are a rare and precious thing, know that I have been a procuress for my lady for that time and I have had many try to impress me.”

Despite herself, Keris could feel pleasant warmth creeping up across her cheeks in a blush. And to think that a demon prince could make a new soul like that, turning a creature that was not previously part of it into a new demon lord! It was fascinating to hear, and Keris longed to inquire further and see if it was at all like how she had turned Firisutu into one of her souls. She bit back such a comment though, and instead chose to sate other aspects of her curiosity. “What happened to the prince of the dragon children?”

Claudia smiled, flashing blocky, bone-crushing white teeth. “Even a dragon child should not wear a crown which holds the wisdom of a demon prince. He ruled and all lusted for him, but his thoughts were swayed to Ipithymia’s and he came to rely on it more and more. The need for pleasure consumed him, and he let his nobles run free. When she sent me to recover it, he was a recluse shut away in his palace, as round as he was tall and wasting away from diseases from his consorting with chaos-beasts. I took the crown back to Ipithymia, with his head still attached to it. Though not, I might add, his neck.

“This was the first lesson Ipithymia taught me; that all men have their price. The second, that you might destroy a man by giving him his heart’s desire. And the third was that in the end, all men are but meat and bone.”

Over the meal, Keris considered these words. The first, she knew to be true. When she looked at people with the envious eyes Szoreny had granted her, she could see what it would take to make another serve her. She could see that gleam from Claudia herself; the price of her loyalty would be existence independent from Ipithymia and wealth beyond measure. Not a price that anyone could meet, and that told her something about the nature of this demon lord. The second, too, was something she couldn’t deny, for she had used the same tactic many times. But the third - ah, that was where they parted ways in opinion. Treating people as if all they had to offer was their bodies was so _boring_.

Then again, bodies could be a lot of fun. She smiled pleasantly as the desserts were brought in under covered platters of Malfean brass, and both were placed before her.

“Oh, so you get off on denial so much that you’re going to eat my dessert?” Claudia asked, shifting in place.

“Hardly.” Keris lifted one covering. “For me, a delicate assortment of fruits served with Acromel honey and chocolate paste.” She licked her lips as she lifted the other one, to reveal the cocktail glass of an all-too-familiar liquid. “And for you, another dose of Mournful Denial,” she said. “Now, lie down on the table.”

“Ah. Well, it isn’t the first time I’ve been used as a platter,” Claudia said, pulling herself to her feet and stretching. She gingerly brushed the side of one breast, and drew in a breath. “And I’m still sensitive. This promises to be an experience, since I’m already familiar with what you can do with your tongue.”

“You really are quite jaded, aren’t you?” Keris said, letting her robe fall. Her piercings arced lightning between each other, and the tingle drew a faint sigh from her.

“Not entirely. I’m sure one as skilled and talented as you will have me drooling on myself by the time you’re done?” Claudia said, crawling up onto the table.

“Are you mocking me?” 

“Poking you makes you try harder, and I’m looking to enjoy this too,” Claudia said. Her erect clit reaffirmed her words. “I’ve already learned not to underestimate your creativity.”

And to that end, Keris twitched an interior muscle, and pushed a thick ridged red tongue out from between her lower lips. There was nothing quite like the inner pleasure of feeling the oddly reversed penetration of a tongue slide out, and she licked both sets of lips. “Time to eat,” she murmured.

This started a tour of the rooms of this floor, and in each room there was a new game or a new position or a new alchemical brew. And yet Keris found that the temptation that had been so pressing with Testolagh just wasn’t there. She _enjoyed_ her games, especially that little outraged noise whenever Claudia tried to come and couldn’t. But she didn’t fall so easily into spite and deliberate torment. She caught herself whenever she felt the urge to punish, she checked herself before she went too far. She made sure Claudia enjoyed the things she did too, because it was more fun for both of them that way. 

Yes, that was it. She liked doing things to Claudia. But she wanted Claudia to also enjoy having them done to her, whether it involved plugs or new rubs for her nipples and clit or a big fleshy strap-on.

As their time together drew to a close, they had reached the Scarlet Theatre, where the golden automaton-servants danced for them on a stage that gleamed like raw meat. Sweaty, stained, and frankly exhausted, Keris sprawled out in a front row velvety seat with her legs spread wide. Her silk stockings were more ladder-holed than not, and she had discarded her skirt and corset long ago. Where they had sat was stained lavender from the reaction of her sweat with the neomah-leather. Her piercings barely sparked at all; her hair hung limp around her.

Between her legs, Claudia lapped lazily away at her pussy. Some of the drugs Keris had fed her meant she had a little more energy left, but exhaustion radiated from her posture too, in the tiny trembles in her thighs and shoulders. Her mohawk had lost its shape and was matted with sweat, and her body gleamed in the low golden lights, catching her hard nipples and erect clit. Even on her darker skin, little bruises and raw patches could be seen.

“Good girl,” Keris murmured slowly, running her hands through her pet’s hair. “Good girl. Good lovely pretty girl.” She shifted her left leg slightly, so she could lick at Claudia’s shaft with a mouth she’d grown from her foot. The franticness of earlier was gone, and all that was left was slow, lazy, achy fucking. She was getting close. Maybe when she came this time, she’d let Claudia spoon her as they snuggled and watched the rest of the dance.

Outside, the tomescu screamed again. Exactly at that piercing noise, Claudia leaned back on her haunches. Keris went to pull her back to help finish her off - but no, of course, that was the end of their arrangement. She slumped back on the fleshy seat, sweaty skin squeaking against it, and exhaled.

Licking her lips, Claudia pulled herself to her feet, and collapsed on the seat next to Keris. She was trembling slightly. Her eyes, the same colour as the lights, glanced sideways at Keris. “You really took full advantage of our contract, didn’t you?”

“I won it fair and square,” Keris said, finger between her legs as she idly fingered herself. “Not… not going to let it go to waste.”

“Prudent,” Claudia said, stretching, before putting her hands behind her head. She took a deep shuddering breath, wetting her lips. “N-next time, you won’t win.”

“Next time?”

“Of course. When you’re next in Hell, send a messenger and if I’m around and not on contract, we can have a rematch.” She glanced up and down Keris. “On the same terms,” she added. “Though a different arena, one of my choice. I think the Mirror-Garden Pit favoured you.”

Warmth pulsed in Keris’s chest, and she slipped two fingers into herself. “I’m glad. I liked the spar too. I don’t have many people who can give me a proper spear work-out.”

“Oh, you definitely worked out my spear,” Claudia leered, hand on her clit as she stroked it.

“No, seriously.” Keris thought back to how… not lonely, exactly, because she had her family. But how isolated she’d felt in Hell sometimes, only seeing a few people, most of them relatives. “It was… nice to have someone who appreciates spearwork. As well as who’s a big toned woman. With a lovely and wide clit.”

“Next time I’ll win,” Claudia promised. “Then the tables will be turned.”

Inhaling through her nose, Keris could smell the blend of her arousal and Claudia’s. Their smells mixed together, resting heavy on Keris’s tongue so she could almost visualise everything they’d done together. What an odd friendship, of sorts. They’d just spent, what twelve hours around each other, naked and fucking. But that had been because of a bet. And now Claudia wouldn’t even give her one last orgasm, because that’s not what the terms had been. She wasn’t even sure if it really counted as a friendship yet. It was all mixed up in business too. 

Pulling herself off the soft seat, Keris ambled over to where the automata had left the drinks. Bending over, she picked up a bottle of wine, and took a swig from it. “Want some?” she asked, glancing back.

Claudia wasn’t looking at her face. “I have something of a business proposition,” she said, standing up.

“Oh?”

She approached Keris from behind, a big, warm presence behind her. Her erection pressed against Keris’s back, hot and sticky. “We’re both not quite done. I’ll finish you off if you let me take you from behind.”

“You know what?” Keris said, slipping her hand back to stroke the shaft of Claudia’s clit. “That sounds like about all I can manage right now.” She took a swig from the wine bottle, and passed it over. “I agree, but only if you do all the work.”

Claudia took a long gulp of wine, rubbing her clit between the curves of Keris’s ass. “Well, then, it’s your turn to be the bitch,” she purred. “Why don’t you bend over on that seat and spread yourself for me?”

“Proud words from someone who was squealing for more when I had a strap-on up her ass,” Keris said with a yawn, slipping out of her grasp to get down on her knees. She wiggled her hips at the demon lord, feeling a little relieved at not having to be in charge anymore. “Come on, then. If you have it left in you.”

“Fuck you,” Claudia growled fondly, delivering a playful smack to Keris’s bottom which made her yelp.

“Yeah, that’s what you’re going to do, aren’t you?” Keris retorted, feeling the warm stinging of the hand print. “‘Cause if you won’t, I’ll pull out another me instead.” She glanced back over her shoulder, watching Claudia position herself between her legs. Pushing back slightly, she slid the clit between her thighs, rubbing it against her slick belly.

A hand stopped her. “Uh uh. You said I’m doing all the work,” Claudia said, leaning forwards to lie on top of Keris, pinning her in place. Her weight pressed her larger breasts into Keris’s back, and crushed Keris against the sweaty fleshy seats, and that felt good too. Her thick thighs ground against Keris’s bottom. “That means you should be kneeling there and taking it, you little snake.”

“Well, then,” Keris said, the rush of pleasant-feeling letting a fondness creep into her voice. “You can hug me if you want.”

Those two big arms wrapped themselves around Keris’s midsection, hands sneaking back to spread her while a big thumb brushed against her clit. “How’s this?”

“Lovely,” Keris murmured, as that friendly big clit slowly pushed into her, giving her a delightful rush of fullness and contentment. “Just lovely, my friend.”


	5. To See Ourselves as Others See Us

“And remember to call on me next time I’m in Hell!”

It was later, and their scream - and the business proposition after it - were over. Keris stood at the entrance to her Tower’s Painted Floor, which lay on one of the main arteries of the Street of Golden Lanterns. Claudia was with her, wearing the armour she’d arrived in and wincing with every movement. A little bit of Keris felt sympathetic, but most of her just felt smug. That soreness had been well-earned, and it wouldn’t be wearing off anytime soon.

“I mean it!” she insisted. “I don’t have enough free time to clear another scream before I go back to Creation, but when I’m next here, I want another bout.” She jabbed a hair tendril at Claudia. “Don’t let me forget.”

“Perish the thought,” Claudia returned. “I’m looking forward to having you on your back after I win the next round.”

They shared fierce grins for a moment, staring eye-to-eye, each challenging the other’s confidence. Then Keris stepped back.

“Well,” she sighed. “Fun though this has been, I have work to do. So much as I’ve enjoyed your company, I’m afraid I’m kicking you out of my Tower. I have a lot of drafts to edit and some scene rehearsals to arrange.” She snapped her fingers. “Speaking of which...”

A sheaf of papers emerged from her hair and she offered them with a flourish. “Your choice of scenes for the interested parties you mentioned. Pick three from the first act, two from the third and one from the last, and I’ll have them ready before I leave for Creation. Get word back to me within a couple of screams so I have time for rehearsals.”

Claudia accepted the sheaf, flicking through them. “So you don’t just have dildos stuffed in your hair,” she said, sounding distracted as she scanned the drafts.

“I have a lot of things in my hair,” Keris said smugly. “And you’ll never know all of them. But you’re welcome to try and find out next bout.”

“I will, trust me on that,” Claudia said. “After all, I’ll be spending a _lot_ of time looking at the back of your head.”

“Dreaming of it, more like,” Keris shot back, grinning. The smile fell away as one of the gold-skinned eyeless automata that served as the Tower’s attendants tapped her on the shoulder with a slight bow, and she sighed. “Anyway. Like I said. I have work to do. It’s been fun, and I look forward to next time, but...” She tilted her head towards the door.

“Lies,” Claudia said affably. “You don’t have work to do. You just want to go home and collapse in a hot bath to wash away the smell of this place, just like I do. Then sleep for a scream or two.”

Drawing herself up with great dignity, Keris put on her best affronted look. “I do so have work to do,” she said primly, and held her virtuous expression for a moment before relaxing with a wry smile. “I’m not going to _do_ it for a couple of screams,” she admitted, “but I _have_ it. Lilunu wasn’t underselling the amount of work involved in this position.” This last was added in a sullen mutter as she glanced darkly upwards.

“Well, you know, if you need some assistance, my time - or the time of others I can put you in contact with - is always for hire...” Claudia said meaningfully, letting the word hang. She waited for Keris to respond, and when she only stared at her flatly, shrugged. “Oh well, worth a try. If you change your mind, my door is always open.” She waved the sheaf of papers at her, before tucking them away into one of her tattoos. “I’ll see you later when I’ve had a look through these, then.”

“Send the runner to my townhouse in the Conventicle; I won’t be in any one place long enough for them to find me after I wake up,” Keris advised, and saw her out of the door. “Until next time, then.”

“Until next time,” Claudia bowed, and then wandered down the path back into the loud, heaving bustle of the golden-lit Street.

Shutting the door behind her, Keris turned and leaned against it, cocking her head contemplatively. The music in her head shifted in tone, but this wasn’t something she wanted to talk to her mama about. Dulmea had few opinions and even less interest in matters of sex - and while Sirelmiya would be more willing to talk, Keris didn’t love Claudia and didn’t ever intend to.

No, she needed a more understanding sounding board. And since her children were ruled out and Sasi wasn’t available, that left her with depressingly few options.

Oh well. There was always one person she could talk to who’d understand.

Keris breathed out, wincing at the pain of the exhalation, and a cloud of blood-rich vapour coalesced into a perfect copy of her, clad in simple white linens and without the signs of vigorous activity that Keris bore all over her body. The Gale rolled her shoulders, cracked her neck, and looked her over.

“Gods,” she said, mildly impressed. “You look like she ran you over in her hyena-form. We might’ve got a bit enthusiastic letting her bite back at the end there, boss.” She sniffed, and wrinkled her nose. “Urgh, she wasn’t kidding about the smell, either. C’mon, let’s go up to the Golden Floor and get you into a bath.”

With only some token muttering about uppity other-selves, Keris let herself be chivvied up two flights of stairs and into a golden bathtub full of gold-tinted water run by the Tower’s attendants. Her Gale perched on a stool next to the her, humming along with the music in _her_ head as it diverged from Keris’s own into a complimentary counter-melody. She seemed annoyingly perky despite being the weaker of the two of them, probably because she got to be in perfect physical condition without any soreness or stickiness to suffer through. Raising her head a little from the lip of the bathtub, Keris sent her a resentful glare.

“Yeah yeah,” her Gale said with a wave of a hair tendril. “Get over it, you still get to be the one in charge. Here, I’ll give you a backrub while you soak and we talk.”

Suiting word to deed, her hair got to work, and Keris relaxed with a faint groan. It wasn’t as good as one of her own massages - her Gales couldn’t turn their hair or fingers into root-tendrils to ease muscles from the inside - but it was still a massage from a medic and acupuncturist taught by Lilunu herself. She could feel the tension bleeding away, like it was dissolving into the hot, fragrant water around her and being carried away as steam.

“So,” her Gale said after a while. “Besides some really interesting stuff about hyena anatomy that deserves follow-up next time we see Sasi, what have we learned here?”

Keris let her head roll to the side, swishing a hand back and forth in the water and pursing her lips.

“First of all, I... guess there’s more of Calesco in us than we thought,” she admitted. “In, uh, bedroom stuff. The hurting people. Except... I guess it’s not just Calesco, it’s Haneyl as well. We don’t just want to hurt people just ‘cause, we want to... to...”

“To be in charge and have them mouth off at us so we can smack ‘em for disobeying,” her Gale filled in. “Like Ney.”

They shared a fond smile.

“Yeah,” Keris agreed. “Like that brat.” She wrinkled her nose. “Though I guess maybe it’s more that Haneyl and Calesco have that... that pretend-anger and thing for hurting lovers because we do. Oh, and the denial thing.” Her lips twisted into a wry grimace. “Guess we can’t pretend that was a one-off with Testolagh anymore. She was so _pretty_ when she was desperate and begging for it.”

“Heh. Yeah. She really was.” Her Gale finished tending to her shoulders and moved up to her scalp. Keris’s toes curled, and she wriggled happily in the steaming water with a contended groan as skilled fingers worked through her hair and around the ring-piercings it hid, unclipping strands of garotte wire and delicate jewelled chain.

“But, like, let’s be honest, boss. Pretending we didn’t have a thing for that was just more denial of a different kind. Like, okay, we were hoping it was a one-off, but I’m pretty sure we knew it wasn’t. Else we wouldn’t have spilled to Sasi like we did. Telling ourselves it might’ve just been Testolagh was just wishful thinking. What’ve we actually _learned?”_

“That...”

Keris stared up at the golden ceiling, thinking it over. “That we can do that and... not lose control. That it doesn’t have to be a bad thing. Claudia enjoyed it as much as we did, and we stopped ourself from grabbing her clit with the paste-and-gel mix. As long as it’s not Testolagh or someone else we envy - someone the Silver Forest drives us to be spiteful to - we can keep our head.”

“Pretty sure the gel would’ve denatured the paste if we’d left them touching for much longer, so we wanna avoid cross-contaminating them in future,” her Gale mused. “But yeah, that’s basically what I was thinking. We like it and people we’re with can like it, and we apparently _can_ trust ourself not to lose our head and take it too far, so... we’re gonna try it out more in future?” She leans over Keris, presenting her with an upside-down picture of her own grinning face. “Ney seems to like the slap-slap-kiss stuff. And provoking us for our ‘prickly’ side. This gonna be in the next dream we send him?”

“Mmmf.” Blushing, Keris pushes her head away. “I... think we should talk to him about it first. But yeah, we can, uh, raise it as an option.”

“Hey, boss?” The Gale sounded more thoughtful. “D’you think we were always like this? Or is it something new? Like, something from the King’s fire and how you can tell when people are _weak_ , or maybe… uh, the whole Adorjan’s love thing and how Calesco gets off on hurting people she loves? Is it… you know. Us? Or them. Your bosses?”

Keris bit her lip. “I mean... the Haneyl prickliness, mama says we were like that with Rat as well as Ney. That we took to Ney so quick because he reminded us of what we had with Rat and forgot about.” She could remember it now, sort of. Not the little details, but the shape of the memories she’d let go of in Matasque because they’d hurt so much. The bickering and arguing and fighting - sometimes in play, sometimes for real. After... after killing him, the thought of fighting him at all had been too painful to remember, and she’d cut that whole side of their bond away, but Chir had brought some of the memories back, dredged up from Dulmea’s memories of Keris’s own thoughts in their early partnership. It was like watching herself through glass, remembering those days she’d once forgotten... but she could still see the pattern of pretend-anger and mock offence in how they’d danced around each other.

She sniffed, and her Gale wiped the tear away for her. “And Calesco?” she prompted softly, draping herself over the end of the tub to loop her arms around Keris’s neck from behind in a loose hug and lean her chin on Keris’s shoulder. “The sadism and denial stuff?”

Keris stays silent, chewing at her lip even harder.

“Boss - _Keris_.” The tone shift was smooth as her Gale’s hands came up to cradle her face. It wasn’t a Gale of Keris behind her anymore. It was a mortal Cinnamon. “Keris, I know this is something that scares you. I know you’ve struggled with the thought that what you became with Testolagh was a sign of some inner cruelty. But think - you buried these feelings in _Calesco_ , your kindest soul. Your Compassion. And with Claudia, just this last scream, you’ve proven that their place there doesn’t reflect some hidden taint or corruption within your caring heart. It reflects how your conscience holds those dark pleasures back, and keeps them in check.”

Keris shuddered, curling up in water that suddenly seemed cold. Those were fears she’d never even put to words - things she’d kept crammed down and tried not to think about ever since that tryst in Love Unchained. But Cinnamon’s words were persuasive and gentle and kind, and she coaxed Keris to straighten out again, stroking her forehead and whispering reassurances to her.

“Can you tell,” she asked, as tender as a mother with a child and yet as firm as mountains, “whether you felt this lust for pain - giving and taking - before you Exalted, or if it only came after?”

Screwing up her eyes, Keris searched her memories. She’d never _done_ anything like that before meeting Dulmea. But then, she’d never done much at all that involved her own pleasure in the bedroom. She’d barely had any time with Rat, and Gull... Gull was complicated, and she couldn’t separate what had been sex with what had just been toxic, there.

Meekly, she shook her head.

“Well,” Cinnamon said, and Keris opened her eyes again at the sound of the wry smile in her voice. “There is a way to find out, you know.” She winked.

It took Keris a second, then she got it. “You... you don’t have my powers,” she whispered. “You don’t _like_ the thought of... of choosing between betraying Sasi or betraying Lilunu. But it doesn’t make you collapse and scream. If it’s from my powers...”

“I mean, I am one of the gifts of Adorjan,” Cinnamon shrugged. “So it might still carry over. But I think at least it would be lessened. So.” She tapped Keris under the chin and smirked. “Want to play the other side and let me be in charge? Then you can get an idea of how you like holding the whip when you’re not connected to all your souls and powers.”

 _safe-delight-contentment_ Pekhijira whispered in the background of her mind. _desire-surrender-bliss_

Keris thought for a moment... and then smiled, small and sweet.

“Maybe not while I’m still sore and sated,” she said. “But yeah. Sometime soon.”


	6. The Gilded Idol

The great glass pleasure-fortress was set aggressively in the centre of the Street of Golden Lanterns, so that the flow of traffic split around it on both sides. Through its tinted windows, all forms of delights and vices could be seen. Many of these indulgences were far beyond those that the travellers could afford, and such terrible revelry had a hypnotic allure. The wise did not linger overlong, though, for sometimes the glass would reach out and snatch up those who came too close. Those who could afford to pay would wake up later in one of the alleys of the street, their purse quite empty and their thoughts burning with the memories of delights, but those who could not pay would be impressed into service to pay for their debts.

Claudia had no such worries, for her accounts with her greater self were well-loaded with credit and her own personal wealth put the princes of Creation to shame. It was without any hesitation, therefore, that she stepped into the glass wall and let it take her within the citadel.

The glass deposited her within the Obsidian Chambers, where the light of the golden flames reflected off the mirror-polished walls. Within them were trapped many demons who had offered up even their physical forms in payment to the street. Their flesh laboured elsewhere, and while they waited to pay off their debts their images danced to entertain guests.

With a jingling, Claudia adjusted what little she wore. She had changed into a loose and long jacket of interlinked golden disks, but only wore soft demon-spider black silk undergarments under it. And if it wasn’t for the need to hold the cotton pads soaked in numbing juice in place, she’d have gone without the bra. Her nipples were feeling very chafed and it hurt to have anything brush against them. Her clawed god-kicking boots were laced up to mid thigh, and clicked against the glass floor as she stalked the halls.

She knew these passages well, and so she soon arrived at the double doors that led to one of her mistress’s personal quarters. The living brass statue Mi-Harusi recognised her on sight. “What ho, Claudia! She’s with someone, but she mentioned she was expecting you to show up. How have things been?”

“Sore,” Claudia said ruefully. “But a great deal of fun.”

Steam escaped from his mouth as he exerted himself, swinging the vast doors open. “When you have some free time, we should catch up. How about-”

“I don’t give free samples, Mi-Harusi. If you want my company, you need to make it worth my time. You should know this.”

“I know, I know…”

And she was past him, and into the Sixth Chamber. The heat was intense, but that was only partly due to the free-floating golden lanterns which bobbed in the air looking like lost stars against the black obsidian walls and ceiling. A great many statues of all manner of beings and demon kinds stood around the edges of the room, posed to flaunt themselves or in scenes of one vice or another. Some of the ‘statues’ were servants, their bodies painted to look like stone and forced to hold one position or another until called upon. There were seatings for an audience here, filled with musicians who filled the air with sultry arias, and odd curiosities from Hell and Creation upon gold-based pedestals, but the greatest thing on display here was in the centre of the room.

Ipithymia was often named for the street that was her greater body, but she had another title and that was the Gilded Idol. It was that form which waited for her soul Claudia, sprawled out on a divan. Had she chosen to stand, she would have been easily twice the height of a lesser woman at the shoulder; a devilish statuesque woman of living gold, four armed and with the horns of a ram. Her heartbreaking smile revealed obsidian teeth; her eyes were jet black. One hand held a wine glass large enough to hold a whole barrel, a second cupped an incense pipe, but her other two were busy with one of her latest acquisitions.

“A dragon-child?” Claudia enquired, taking in the man’s sky-blue hair and Dynastic features locked in an expression of blissful ecstasy. He stared adoringly up at Ipithymia as she held him down with one hand while the fourth hand slid her finger in and out of his ass. His hands were shackled behind him; a gilded cage trapped his dick. “My lady, congratulations!”

“I’m going to have fun with this one,” Ipithymia agreed, her voice a purr that raised the temperature in the room. Claudia felt sweat bead on her brow. “Look at this sparkling example of the glories of House Tepet.” Her choice of the Low Realm pronunciation of that house name could only be deliberate. “After his poor doomed family lost so much of their status, he fell into despair. But despair ain’t easy to endure. He went looking to have a good time, just so he could forget all. And that path led this little lost lamb to me.”

Claudia bowed. “You always do have fun with dragon-children, my lady.”

“Look at him, Claudia. His dragon’s blood is doin’ something useful for once. It’s all rushing to his cock. He wants me so badly. But he’s still being trained. I dunno if he’s completely devoted to me yet. He’s going to have do more for me,” she stroked his chin, “before I move beyond fingers.” Ipithymia smiled her heartbreaking smile. “Wanna help train him, Claudia? I think he’s earned your clit.”

“Perhaps once I have rested, my lady,” Claudia said, wincing, paying no regard to the look of hope on the dragon child’s face. “I am… a little sore right now.”

“Oh ho ho.” Ipithymia paused, a frown momentarily marring that brow of living gold. “That ain’t like you. Hmmm.” She glanced at her dragon-child. “Anaro. My little slut.” She exhaled a wine-smelling breath over him. “Come.”

The man let out a thin keening noise, and collapsed down onto the divan, semen leaking from the cage. Laying him down, Ipithymia slid from her divan and as if by a trick of perspective was suddenly in front of Claudia, only a head taller than her soul.

“That is _not_ like you at all,” Ipithymia breathed, “and I’m not happy. I don’t like that kind of insult.”

“I am only exhausted and very sore right now, my lady,” Claudia said, well-used to the ways of her mistress and knowing what would come next. In one motion, Ipithymia lashed out and tore her clothes from her.

Ipithymia took in the state of her body, and laughed so hard she slopped wine over the floor. “You weren’t fucking kidding me! Claudia, I thought you were just being a brat, but look at the state of you!” She twisted her soul around. “Nail marks all over your back, fuckin’ cotten pads on your nipples, love bites all over, and your clit ain’t fully erect even in my presence.” She grabbed it, and Claudia winced. “By Malfeas’s balls, you’re as raw as fuck.”

“I am,” she confessed. “And that is the subject I would speak to you about, my lady.”

Ipithymia clapped her hands. “I think we’ll have this out in one of the gardens,” she announced to the air. “Leash up my new pet. I’m taking him for a walk.” She glanced Claudia up and down. “And bring replacement garments for Claudia, but don’t bother giving her them until we’re done. I like the sight of some finely done handiwork.”

They took a stroll through one of the private gardens within Ipithymia, the lady and her soul, and behind them trailed a once-proud dynast in ensorcelled manacles that forced him to crawl behind them. This garden was the Glade of Lost Souls, and every single tree within it was a former lover of Ipithymia who she had tired of and transformed into gold and planted in these grounds. The newer ones still had the seeming of statues, posed in ways that reflected the depths of degeneracy that the demon princess had dragged them to, but in time the metal started to grow and twist and became beautiful trees whose bright flowers and peach-like fruit were a rare delicacy. 

Reaching up to one of the boughs, Ipithymia plucked a fruit, and bit into it, tearing at its flesh. Scarlet juice ran down her chin. “So what fucked you raw?” she asked, in between bites.

“Ah, my lady,” Claudia said, folding her hands behind her back. “During the negotiations with Keris Dulmeadohkt about that new play you were so interested in, we got into talking about spear-work and sparring. There was a challenge; we agreed on the stakes of the other’s submission for a scream.”

“Hah!” Ipithymia’s laugh was a bark. “That must’ve rankled you. Ligier’s creatures can be quite skilled - and she’s a nasty little killer from what I’ve heard.”

“Oh, I knew that, my lady. I saw her fight against one of her peers the Calibration before last in the great arena. But she was show-boating then. I thought to get an understanding of her talents.” 

The demon prince took another bite of her fruit. “So you wagered your body ‘cause you were eager to sample that pretty little ass of hers?” she said with a full mouth. “Don’t be disingenuous, Claudia. You know I fuckin’ hate that. You saw her and that Sasimana entertain everyone with a live imagecast and thought you’d be able to pin her down and take her for a scream. But she beat you and took out her tastes on you instead. You must be hatin’ that.”

“Not at all, my lady,” Claudia said smoothly. “I wished to test myself against her, to see the skill of a princess of the green sun with her spear. But I also knew, win or lose, I’d be able to value her skills in the bedchamber. In _your_ service.”

“Hrm.” A short noise, as Ipithymia pulled her little dragonblooded pet behind her and sat upon his back, crossing her legs. “I’m listenin’.”

Claudia dipped her head. “I have itemised and made a reckoning of the price of the services that Keris Dulmeadokht performed on me during the scream she had ownership of my body. Unfortunately it is not quite exhaustive as I was,” she coughed, “slightly out of it for some of the middle sections, but I have made my best estimates as to her skill and value as a courtesan. In addition, once the scream had passed, we engaged in some short-term bartered mutual services, which are itemised in the attached codicil. Shall we talk of my compensation for providing you with these estimates?”

Ipithymia’s lower pair of hands gripped her mount, while her upper pair folded in her lap. “Usual rate for a citizen,” she said.

“My lady, this information is worth more than that,” Claudia said plainly. Her Unquestionable demanded more than a little respect, but she also got irate when she felt people were wasting her time. Time spent haggling was time she could be spending on, atop, or inside her hobbies. “A peer is worth more than a citizen generally. Moreover, I know the value of the sexual services of a green sun princess, and I can take into consideration both its value in the markets of Kussana, its value in more general markets, and the value I might be able to extract from Peer Dulmeadokht in my discretion here.”

Ipithymia uncrossed and crossed her legs, those obsidian-black eyes watching how Claudia’s poor exhausted clit stirred at the sight. “Are you defying me?” she purred.

“I know the value of this,” Claudia said, mouth dry, gripping her wrists behind her back. “And to give you such a favourable rate would be charity.” Her lips curled up at the word. 

“I’ll double it.”

“My price is the Ah-Saran manse.”

Ipithymia caught her eyes, and exhaled. All around her, metal liquefied and pooled on the floor. In a flash the demon princess was in her face, close enough to kiss, but the gentle hand on her neck had claws. A second hand wrapped around her clit, and there were nails there too. “You have a lot of fuckin’ cheek.”

All-Makers, she was painfully hard right now. She could taste copper. “No one else can offer you this information.”

The upper hand crept up, tilting her head, squeezing open her jaw, pinching her cheeks into a pout. “A whole manse for you to kiss an’ tell?”

“It’s what it’s worth in the markets of Hell,” Claudia said, as clearly as she could.

“I wonder why I let you live, Claudia.” The lower hand dug in its nails, not quite breaking skin. Not quite. “You’re an uppity bitch. So greedy. So ambitious.”

“Because, my lady, you know I’ll do _anything_ for the right price. And I’ll get it done.” She swallowed, breathing through her mouth and tasting blood. She could feel her heartbeat equally in her nose, her chest, and her clit. “I am what you made me to be.” 

“Funny thing is,” Ipithymia purred (a purr, the noise of a predator that’d eat you up if you were smaller than it), “yeah. That is what you are. So how about this instead? I’m not giving you a manse for a kiss and tell story. Because that’ll allow you to claim that’s the price next time you coax that outta one of Ligier’s pets. And the fact you’re willin’ to charge that high a price and the fact you came back all achin’ and raw tells me you like her.” Ipithymia’s hand started to stroke against her length, and it hurt and it just made it better. Claudia’s breath quickened.

“Th-that is the price,” she managed.

“I’ll pay triple citizen-rate for a peer’s story,” Ipithymia said, leaning in until her lips were almost close enough to touch. “But if you get her workin’ for me, get her to sign a contract for entertainment on me, and I’ll give you that manse. And ten percent of the gross of her earnings.”

“Done.” Claudia didn’t even need to think. Her response came from below the level of thought, the kind of reaction one might have to touching a hotplate.

Ipithymia let go, and the sudden lack of contact hurt even more than her nails. “She’s that valuable? Well, well, well.” She held out her hand. “Gimme.”

Claudia took a moment to settle herself, and pulled one of her tattoo-spots off her skin, passing it to her lady who unfolded it and started to read it while sitting down on her pet. She knew better than to let her attention wander - or worse, steal one of the fruit - while Ipithymia was apparently paying attention to the scroll.

Finally, she was done. “Fuck,” Ipithymia grunted, emphatically. “Fuck. You fucked me, Claudia.”

“You offered me this arrangement,” she pointed out.

“I didn’t think she’d be _this_ talented,” the demon princess snarled. “These are numbers I might get for, _fuck_. They’re better numbers than a trained dragon-child. They’re numbers I haven’t seen since the dragonblooded murdered Yuuko.” She let out a disgusted noise at the back of her throat. “I put _decades_ into him. Slowly breaking down that irritating nobility. Offering him more and more. Training him to put that moonsilver body in my service. Holding his heart until he learned love meant nothing and the flesh was all that existed. And then this… this _girl_ swans in. A babe less than fifty!” She whirled. “If you’re lying to me-”

“I would not be in this state if I was.”

“Ha! No wonder she put you through the fuckin’ wringer.” Ipithymia shot a glance at Claudia. “You like her.”

“Anyone who could-”

“No, you idiot. You like her, ‘cause you really went for every bit of profit you could get. Which means you’re pricin’ in her friendship to the cost of sellin’ her out. And that ain’t like you.”

Claudia folded her hands behind her back. “I suppose it wouldn’t be.”

“Tch.” Ipithymia waved a hand at her soul, shooing her away. “Get the fuck out of my sight, and get out of here. I’m pissed off at how much I’m going to be paying you if you pull this off. And you know what? You probably will.”

Bowing her head, Claudia simply nodded. She’d let Ipithymia know about the play drafts later. Maybe when it could be sold as a separate transaction. “Yes, my lady.”

“Yeah. Fuck off. And,” the demon princess sighed. “Go get the clothes from Mehzin and don’t hassle me for at least a week.”

Claudia departed, and Ipithymia watched her go, eyes lingering on the nail marks on her back and the hand-shaped bruises on her bottom. At a professional level, she was irked. Her soul shouldn’t be submitting to anyone who wasn’t her, or someone who was paying mighty well for the privilege. She owned that ass, not some upstart pet of Lilunu, Ligier’s pet. Her Claudia wasn’t the pet of a pet of a pet.

And yet. She scanned Claudia’s estimates again, lingering over the values. Hell was a prison, she knew all too well. She had been born in this place, born to the crippled Demon King as he sunk into vice to numb the pain of defeat. She had known bare moments of freedom in Creation before being variously bound or banished. And she had come to realise freedom was an illusion. Everyone was enslaved to someone. Might as well be bound to something you liked doing.

Idly she dragged one set of nails along her new pet’s back. Maybe she could lead him into begging her for a new set of eyes. Blue was so dull.

Everyone was a prisoner of this great lie; existence. So embrace it, and wile away your days in decadence and what others called depravity, because there was no escape and no point in denial. Everyone had their price and would sell themselves for it; everything else was just bickering about the numbers.

Keris Maryam Dulmeadokht. Singer, actress, alchemist, dancer, playwright. Assassin and harlot.

“My my,” she whispered, a croon that could lead men to unleash a thousand ships to please her, and had. “You’re interestin’. You’ll look so pretty when you’re on your knees.”


End file.
